When a board is approving the budget of a nonprofit, it usually sees a number that represents a percentage increase for employee salaries. It is natural to ask whether the CEO should receive the same percentage. I certainly understand the temptation. It feels evenhanded. It’s easy to explain. It avoids the awkward optics of staff […]
Should the CEO Get the Same Raise as Everyone Else? Read More »
Nonprofit board service is a collection of important responsibilities surrounded by invisible fences. No one is born understanding nonprofit governance. While more experienced board members might pretend like it’s obvious how to behave, many people don’t completely understand it after serving on a board, either. Board service is a volunteer job in which people are
Please Be More Engaged. No, Not Like That. Read More »
Responsible nonprofit boards pay attention to the compensation they provide their chief executives. The CEO is almost always the only employee for whom they are setting the salary. They must pay enough to attract and retain capable leadership while ensuring that the compensation is reasonable. There can be serious consequences for getting this wrong. If
How to Conduct a Nonprofit CEO Salary Study for Free Read More »
The fundraising profession is crystal clear about banning shared risk and comfortably vague about what professionals may charge. Over the course of this series, I have tried to take the fundraising profession’s opposition to contingency compensation seriously. The prohibition has some merit. Percentage commissions can give a fundraiser a personal interest in the size of
Keep the Principle. Rewrite the Rule (Part 4 of 4 on Contingent Fundraising) Read More »
Yesterday, I saw a question in one of my nonprofit Facebook groups that captured the problem almost perfectly. A small nonprofit wanted to know how it could get the money to hire a grant writer. The answers were well-meaning, but not very satisfying. Most people said the organization should raise money from individuals until it
In the first installment of this series, I looked at the fundraising profession’s prohibition on contingency compensation. Most professional fundraisers know the rule: compensation should not be calculated as a percentage of the money raised, and payment should not depend on whether a particular gift or grant is secured. Board members are often surprised to
The Case For The Hardline, and its Limits (Part 2 of 4 on Contingent Fundraising) Read More »
I have seen some version of this conversation take place multiple times. An enthusiastic new board member, or perhaps even an inexperienced nonprofit CEO, has an idea. “We don’t really have the money to hire a grant writer right now. Why don’t we find someone who will write the grant and pay them out of
Contingency Fundraising – Who says it’s Unethical? Read More »
In many CEO evaluation processes, one question comes up early: should the CEO complete a self-evaluation? I suspect that this topic will produce some disagreement. Barring unusual circumstances, I believe that a CEO self-evaluation creates stress, unnecessary conflict and confusion about the point of the CEO evaluation process. At first glance, it seems only fair that
I have been on a road trip from Kansas City to Buffalo to Fairhope, Alabama and home again. All that windshield time has given me time to ponder some of the bigger challenges that are going to affect the nonprofit sector. My business focuses on CEO evaluations and salary surveys, but stepping away from the
How Do We Create a Strategic Plan for a Time of Disruption? Read More »
Nonprofit boards have always had a responsibility to be thoughtful about executive compensation. That responsibility is not new. But it is not uncommon at all for CEO compensation to increase by a generous “bump” up over last year’s, and be done with it. But the challenges around highly compensated nonprofit officers appear to be increasing.
Nonprofit Executive Compensation Should Not Be Treated Casually Read More »
